Cooked & Co.: A Don’t-Miss in Scarsdale

Oh how I wish there was a Cooked & Co near me. Or maybe I don’t! Because I’m powerless to resist the food there. I couldn’t help but order a ga-zillion things last time I was in: Nutella muffins, chive-and-ramp frittata, steak sandwich — and that’s just lunch. I took home dinner, too.

Cooked & Co opened in late April on Garth Road in Scarsdale, and it’s been humming along ever since. And no wonder. First off, the food is great, yes. Here’s that nutella muffin, which also has banana and hazelnuts. Man, oh man.

But the space is also beautiful. It’s got an industrial-chic look that still manages to feel airy and light.

The display case goes down one side of the shop, with a coffee bar and a refrigerated case on the other.

A banquette with vintage-looking pillows lines the front window, which looks out onto the street.

;

More food and photos, after the jump.

Herb Lindstrom, who owns the shop with three other partners — Melissa Iscaro, Denise Ruggiero and Christian Petroni, the former chef at Peniche in White Plains and Barcelona in Greenwich, Conn. — used to work at Standing Room Only in Scarsdale.

He told me he loved making things for the display case there, but that off-premise catering was such a big part of the business that he was never able to give the case as much attention as he would have liked.

So here, at Cooked & Co., the case comes first.

While the partners will do parties, they want to keep them small. (And eventually they may also do a chef’s table Friday nights at Cooked & Co.) Keeping catering parties small means they can concentrate on making really delicious food for you to take home for dinner — or eat in for lunch.

Here was my lunch the other day (don’t worry, I took most of it home):

For dinner, I had the terrific corn salad, and a mix of the spicy Buffalo chicken and orange-sriracha shrimp. I don’t have any photos of that because my husband and I scarfed it up before I could get my camera out. Bravo, Cooked & Co!

;

And here’s the story that appeared in print on May 6 by Jeanne Muchnick. (The good photos on this post are by Tania Savayan/TJN)

We snagged the last Nutella muffin.

Melissa Iscaro, a partner in Cooked & Co., the new prepared foods cafe in Scarsdale, had baked only 12 that morning. She put the word out on Facebook, and by the time we had lunch at noon, we got the last one. It was gooey and sweet and topped with chopped hazelnuts for crunch. We considered ourselves lucky.

And so, it seems, do the partners at Cooked & Co. “We’re all chefs and we all love to cook,” says Herb Lindstrom, who co-owns the cafe and shop with Iscaro, Denise Ruggiero and Christian Petroni, the former chef at Peniche in White Plains and Barcelona in Greenwich, Conn.

The partners’ relationships — forged over busy stoves at area catering locales and restaurants — have led to this “dream project” in which the goal, says Lindstrom, is to offer the best restaurant-quality food in a to-go setting in Westchester. (Lindstrom worked for many years at Standing Room Only in Scarsdale.)

There is indeed, a food-lover’s vibe to the urban-chic storefront, decorated with natural materials put together with a designer’s eye.

Burlap bag pillows are strewn along a window seat in the front, Edison light bulbs hang in Mason jar-style fixtures, and a flat-screen TV set set above an early-1900s ice box plays the Food Network all day.

The simple yet stylish ambiance is the ideal backdrop to the real star of the show: The refrigerated food cases and the various “try me” offerings set atop them that set your taste buds into overdrive. There are sandwiches such as grilled chicken, meatball sub, house-roasted turkey, and roasted eggplant, as well as salads (including build your own), and burgers (“regular,” turkey, veggie and Buffalo chicken).

You can also get smoothies, protein shakes and coffee. But the piece d’ resistance is the ever-changing rotation of dishes, including chimi-churri shrimp, spicy chicken and Mexican corn salad with Parmesan cheese, lime and chili.

Corn salad with light aioli, lime zest, parmesan and sriracha

Order a little bit of this and a little bit of that and your food will be delivered to you – warm if needed – on a plate and served to your table.

All of those dishes make for easy take away, and there’s also a case in the back filled with interesting products like house-made avocado butter, strawberry frozen fruit pops and Jenni’s ice cream in innovative flavors like salty caramel, whiskey and pecans, and Riesling poached pear.

In the future, expect cooking classes and a weekly chef’s table dinner, where Petroni will get creative with a multi-course tasting menu for 12 (reservation only and first come, first served). Catering for small events will also be available.

About Author

Liz Johnson is content strategist for The Journal News and lohud.com, and the founding editor of lohudfood, formerly know as Small Bites. As food editor, she won awards from the New York News Publishers Association, the Association of Food Journalists and the Associated Press. She lives in Nyack with her husband and daughter on a tiny suburban lot they call their farm — with fruit trees, an herb garden, and a yardful of lettuce, tomatoes, onions, shallots, cucumbers, zucchini, radishes, cabbage, peppers, Brussels sprouts and carrots and four big blueberry bushes.

1 Comment

Congrats on your GREAT place, I just spoke with Maryellen King a childhood friend of mine. My name is Barbara Bisceglia and I live in West Harrison. I have worked at Ridgeway Country Club in White Plains until they sadly closed their doors. Your place looks very interesting and I am a detailed, fast worker, and extremely hard working. My passion is catering to the public (AKA) the high end members of the Country club. If you every need someone who is a ready to work HARD and please the clients, kindly email me, I have also worked many high end parties and worked closely with the Chef taken orders and also as the Front Desk Manager/Event Planner